The year is 1985. The setting? Faribault, Minnesota.

1985 seems like a good year for a new season. I Googled "cities in Minnesota" and after some quick research, Faribault stuck out to me because the inventor of the Tilt-A-Whirl is from there and he built the first 14 Tilt-A-Whirls in his basement. Maybe we could get J.K. Simmons to do a long monologue about the Tilt-A-Whirl. Yeah, that'd be cool.

This is Joe, played by Haley Joel Osment

Image: mashable composite; getty images, shutterstock

Joe has a dumb job and he hates himself. He works at a roller rink owned by his girlfriend (Lena Dunham)'s dad, Dalton (Ed Harris). Dalton is mean to him because he crashed his prized Buick. Maybe Joe is related to the Tilt-A-Whirl guy? Oh, yeah, that's good.

But: there's also a crime syndicate! From CANADA

Okay, so there's also a crime syndicate. I think it would be cool if they were from Canada. The Manitoba mafia, or something like that. The leader of the mafia, known simply as "Saw" sends three of his men to Minnesota. These men are: Deuce (a cool actor), a skilled killer who is obsessed with birds, and the Barton Twins (two weird guys), twin brothers who communicate exclusively through passages from the Old Testament.

Wow, I'm not sure how Noah Hawley is struggling so much with this! It's easy!

Meanwhile: there are cops

You don't have a season of Fargo if you don't have small town earnest cops in over their heads with an investigation. Officer Stropkey (Alyson Hannigan) loves pinball and dreams of one day becoming a celebrity chef. Her partner, Officer Newsome (Wood Harris) likes ice fishing and landscape painting.

Now, you might be thinking, "This seems complicated." Ha! Classic Fargo! While it seems like an incredible web of characters and narrative held together by deft, thematic-yet-somehow-believable-and-unpretentious screenwriting, it's actually really simple. Here, I'll break it down on paper:

Does this make sense?

Image: Max knoblauch

See? It seems more complex than it is. It really all makes perfect sense and is very easy to write. Here, maybe things will come together even more once I introduce:

The harebrained scheme

Fargo is defined by its harebrained schemes that snowball into massive, deadly conflicts and oh boy, do I have a doozy of an idea for Season 4.

Okay, so Joe and Lena Dunham decide that they'll wait until dark and steal all the money from the safe at the roller rink. Did I mention that there's a safe there? There is a safe there, with like $20 million inside it. Meanwhile, on the SAME night, the crime guys are coming to burn the roller rink DOWN. Now, THEY have money invested in Dalton's roller rink and plan to collect the insurance payout. They don't even know about the safe. Pretty crazy, right? Well hold onto your butts, because there's another twist coming: the devil is already at the roller rink.

The devil is in the show

Not the literal devil, of course — just a character who symbolizes him. This is interesting because the three crime guys represent the three heads of Cerberus, the monster hound who guards the underworld (this will make sense and be insanely cool). Now, the devil is a character named Mrs. Olson (Dianne Wiest), a mercenary-for-hire turned serial murderer who is ACTUALLY the cousin of Joe Bulo (Brad Garrett) from Season 2. Mind. Blown.

Following along? Here's a sketch to make a bit of sense of all of this.

Mr. Hawley: you're welcome.

Image: max knoblauch

Okay, so meanwhile, Haley Joel Osment gets the safe, and the bad guys see it happening and think he is a competing crime guy — classic Fargo. The devil character stealthily kills the one dude's bird, which symbolizes Lucifer's fall from grace, and the cops (they live nearby) investigate it all after and they are confused but determined to solve the case.

So, there we have the end of Act 1. All the pieces are set, and everything now just needs to patiently, expertly connect and pay off for the audience and continue to be super good. While this might sound difficult, it's actually very simple once you visualize how all the characters connect to one another.

Remind you of anything? Exactly. The Tilt-A-Whirl : )

Image: Max knoblauch

Noah Hawley, I've done a third of your job for you for free. Please, reach out if you need help taking it from here, I'm here to help.

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